Your Soap Box

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The New Brighton Coalition of Concerned Citizens is organizing North Shore residents to rally the city toward moving the Sanitation Garage out of residential Tompkinsville.

Sanitation employees stopped parking their cars on the sidewalk after that ongoing problem for pedestrians was highlighted in last month’s Advance.

Sanitation officials then announced that, beginning Oct. 1, it will move some of its trucks, equipment and personnel to the site of the former Fresh Kills landfill, a move that Councilwoman Debi Rose ((D-North Shore) and community leaders heralded as a “partial solution to a terrible situation.” Neighbors say the garage is a problem because it is undersized; emissions could pose health hazards, and trucks overflowing from the space impact local traffic, business, and pedestrian safety. Advocate Kevin Washington of New Brighton said this week:

“The August meeting of the New Brighton Coalition of Concerned Citizens, I think, was the best meeting so far. Everybody was very upbeat.

“We’ve made a lot of effort to get going on our rally to move the Sanitation Garage. We’ve had a news conference and gotten our posters out. We’ve made signs for store windows on Jersey Street, and from the laundromat to Victory Boulevard, all of them in that stretch put the sign up. Everybody in the stores was very positive.

“We’ve made and distributed 40 lawn signs and are re-ordering another 40.

“We’ve created a Web site, giftns.org, an acronym for Get Involved for the North Shore.

“Sanitation men have stopped parking their personal cars on the sidewalk.

“We’re putting our best foot forward.

“This is an area with pockets of concentrated poverty and the Coalition would like to see government used to fight this with universal pre-K, better adult job training, and a higher minimum wage, though our focus now is on closing the garage.”